Thanks
I cannot thank you,
little cat with serious eyes,
for your gift of a dead mouse.
I flee from reminders
of killing. I am a vegan, and it would
be easier if you were too.
But then I would lose
your playfulness and pounce, and turn
you into a timid, nibbling rabbit.
I love you for those things,
for your wish to feed me, and for
your love for me, strange as
I must appear to you: so huge,
so hairless, so hopeless a hunter. I am thankful
for what I cannot understand, this strange
love than can span species.
From Guest Contributor Cheryl Caesar
Cheryl lived in Paris, Tuscany and Sligo for 25 years; she earned her doctorate in comparative literature at the Sorbonne and taught literature and phonetics. She now teaches writing at Michigan State University. Last year she published over a hundred poems in the U.S., Germany, India, Bangladesh, Yemen, and Zimbabwe, and won third prize in the Singapore Poetry Contest for her poem on global warming. Her chapbook Flatman: Poems of Protest in the Trump Era is now available from Amazon and Goodreads.